Throwback Thursday! Who Are The Golden Boys? You May Never Really Know

(Aug. 3, 2014) Who are The Golden Boys? Are they men? Are they myth? Are they Minotaur? They’re two of those three, but I’m not saying which.

Have you ever wondered if authors base their characters on people they know? I don’t know if all of them do it, but I did. White Picket Prisons and The Sneaker Tree may be suspenseful, humorous, murder mysteries, but the real stories are about the close knit group of friends who refer to themselves as The Golden Boys. The picture above is of me, on the right, with two of the Golden Boys. I will not identify them by name to protect the innocent. I have known these two guys my entire life, literally since we were in diapers. The Golden Boys and I grew up on the same street in four consecutive houses. We all live in different cities now, but we still try to get together once a year. Today is that day.

There is one more Golden Boy, not pictured, with whom we have little contact. He is still in our hearts and if he were ever to make it back to our hometown we would welcome him with open arms. If or when you read either of my novels, know this: the murder mystery parts may be fiction but the characters are real people, just like the friends you grew up with. If, as in the Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven, you do meet people from your past in the afterlife, I hope that my five are the three other Golden Boys and the two people who leave the most comments on The Phil Factor.

My friends and I have a million stories, some that may appear here in the coming weeks and others that may never again be told. Some involve matching shirts, public nudity, wedding crashing, and/or fake musical abilities and the pretense that we may have been a ‘one hit wonder’ band from the late 80’s. If you want to read some of our stories, I’ll tell you that many of them are in my books, but I won’t tell you which are fact and which are fiction. If you follow me on Instagram at ThePhilFactor you may see some pictures from the next 24 hours. I hope you have a great weekend and more importantly I hope you have life-long friends as great as The Golden Boys.

As always, if you enjoy #ThePhilFactor feel free to share by the Facebook, Twitter or re-blog buttons below. Have a great Thursday! ~Phil